Evidence of meeting #20 for Declaration of Emergency in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was funds.
A video is available from Parliament.
8:10 p.m.
National Security and Intelligence Advisor, Privy Council Office
I agree with you.
8:10 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Okay. Thank you.
Let's allow ITAC, because this is an “either you know or you don't know” kind of question, and if you don't know, given what we just found out, that's a problem.
8:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre
Let me start.
Every year, many times a year, we do an assessment of the national terrorism threat level and we—
8:10 p.m.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Pardon me, Madam Chair, but we're having trouble hearing Ms. Chayer.
Ms. Chayer, would you please adjust your microphone? What you're saying is interesting, and I'd like to hear you.
8:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre
Pardon me, but I have a very low tone of voice.
8:10 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
I'll just note that my time was paused at about 2:13:14. Thank you.
8:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre
That's great.
As I was saying, we do assessments regularly of the threat level for the country and we publish an assessment. In the last few iterations of our assessment, we did indicate that from ITAC's perspective the most likely scenario involving a terrorism-like threat is posed by a lone actor being influenced or radicalized to violence by IMVE rhetoric. We've identified that as the main terrorism-related threat.
8:10 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Correct, but with specificity, we've watched January 6. We've watched the rise of the Proud Boys, and we've watched the mobilization of the Three Percenters.
I'm from Hamilton. I've been dealing with this stuff for close to a decade, which I knew about as a city councillor in Hamilton. It's never referenced in any of the security reports here. The intelligence that came through was referencing ISIS. It is absurd.
The quality of intelligence determines the outcomes of operational planning. Were you not aware that Christian dominionists and ethnonationalists, i.e., white supremacists, were embedded within this movement and posed a threat to national security? Were you aware of that, yes or no?
8:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre
I will say that police operations, especially the type of operation that we saw at Coutts, are a very close hold for operational security purposes, so it's not abnormal that I would not have been privy to those details.
What I can say—as I have said and as the director of CSIS is on the record as saying—is that half of CSIS CT resources, counterterrorism resources, are now dedicated to IMVE.
8:15 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Why do we use the term “IMVE” for white nationalists and “terrorists” for people who aren't white nationalists?
8:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre
No, actually we moved.... I use “terrorism” all the time because it's in the name of my organization, but when we talk about the threat, we talk about violent extremism, which is motivated by religion—potentially any kind of religion—politically motivated, or by ideology, and ideology is broad, on purpose, because there are different—
8:15 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
Respectfully, Madam Chair, I have only 30 seconds left.
Will you acknowledge—and I think it's been put on the record publicly—that there is a threat of infiltration within our Canadian Armed Forces of ideologically motivated extremists based on white supremacy and ethnonationalism?
8:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre
I would actually have to defer that question to the Canadian Armed Forces.
8:15 p.m.
NDP
8:15 p.m.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Intelligence Assessment, Privy Council Office
Well, I know that in some of the reports we did we speak to what you've said, and these have been available to you. Previous protests in Canada and the U.S. have seen populist alt-right groups, white supremacists, conspiracy advocates, etc., prove adept at infiltrating, co-opting or even taking over grievance-based protests.
In a lot of the material that we produced around what was going on in Ottawa, I know for my part that we did not suspect that ISIS was involved. It was quite the opposite, what we identified—
8:15 p.m.
NDP
8:15 p.m.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
I certainly can.
Senator Boniface, you have five minutes. The floor is yours.
8:15 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
I'm going to follow up on Mr. Green's question, and I would like you to be as brief as you can.
From the perspective of talking about violent extremism, and I would say this from a policing perspective as well, it looks at all types of groups. In fact, given the experience of January 6 and such, there's concern in terms of the rise of extremism that is, as Mr. Green rightly said, a white supremacist type of operation.
Am I seeing a “yes” to that?
8:15 p.m.
National Security and Intelligence Advisor, Privy Council Office
You're absolutely correct.
8:15 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Gwen Boniface
Thank you very much.
I'm going to swing to a different topic, then, on the role of the province. You alluded to this, Ms. Thomas, and I want to make sure we're very clear on what participation you got from the province. I think it's quite clear that there was little involvement. In fact, I think the Minister of Public Safety indicated that he made attempts on a number of occasions to speak to his counterpart and was unable to do that. I spent 30 years with the province, and I'm still trying to figure out why that would be the case, given that Ottawa falls within the province of Ontario. At the same time, I applaud the role of the Ontario Provincial Police in the final days.
You said that you have no counterpart in the province of Ontario. Do you have a counterpart in any of the provinces?